Pretty Screwed Up
by Blue Zombie
Summary: Craig and his father in the moments before a beating.
1. Chapter 1

At school I could almost believe that things were okay, that everything was fine, because that's how I acted. That's how I had to act. No one could know that things were a mess, and that I was a mess. I wasn't quite sure why, exactly, but it had to be this way. Things would all fall apart if anyone knew that things were pretty screwed up.

I walked through the halls, smiled, joked with people, saw the little flirty looks that Emma and Manny were giving me. They were a year younger than me, but they were kinda cute, especially Manny. And all I wanted them to think was that I was as normal as they were, nothing was wrong with me. I didn't go home and worry about what my father would say or do, or how his mood would be, or if he'd start being sarcastic and I'd see that look in his eyes and know that there was no escape.

After school I'd take pictures, but it was more than just taking pictures. It was this way of capturing stuff, of framing the world in a way I wanted it to look, of focusing on some things and excluding others. I could lose myself doing it

The light would fade and I'd be so wrapped up in what I was doing that I would hardly notice, and then I'd notice. The light. It was getting dark. I was supposed to be home at six and it was past that. I'd feel that feeling in the pit of my stomach, that twisting nervousness, that helpless fear. I'd run home, hoping my dad wasn't home for some reason, maybe he stayed late at work, or if he was home he wouldn't notice how late I was. He wouldn't notice that I didn't follow his rules and that I always screwed up, and that he worked all the time so I could have all the things I had and I couldn't even follow one simple rule. Maybe he wouldn't notice that.

The dread would all focus itself on the door to my house, and I'd stand outside it with my camera over my shoulder, the thick black strap digging into me. I could feel my heart beating too hard and I couldn't catch my breath. Things weren't fine, and standing outside that door with my heart beating out of my chest, I really knew it. It was all fake at school, the smiles and the laughing and the casual small talk. That was a lie. This was the truth, right here. The truth was I was going to open this door and get yelled at, get that dripping with sarcasm tone and the look in his eyes behind the black framed glasses, and I was going to get beat. There was no way around it.

I took a deep breath and felt all my muscles tense up, and I felt that sick feeling in my stomach, the waves of nausea. I swallowed hard over the dry lump in my throat. I opened the door, and the creak of the door alerted him that I was home.

"Craig!" My name said from some other side of the house, and in the way he said it I heard everything I needed to know. This wouldn't end well. I was sick. I didn't want to walk down the hall and into the kitchen and face him. I didn't want to try and cheerfully lie my way out of this. That never worked, but I always tried.

"Hey, dad," I said, my mouth dry. He was already glaring at me. I put my camera on the counter with shaking hands.

"Where in the hell were you?" he said, his voice quiet but filled with steel. I was late, I had no excuse. I just hung my head, too overwhelmed to lie.

"Huh?" he said, and now he stood up so fast. These were the moments before a beating, and there was no where to turn to, no way to get away. I looked at him, seeing the narrowed eyes, the flaring nostrils, his hands clenched into tight fists.

"Uh, I wh-I was-"

"You were just disregarding my rules, weren't you? You don't give a shit, do you?"

Sarcasm. I was shaking inside, my hands were shaking. The narrowed eyes, the sarcasm, all the signs. I was backed up against the counter, he was in front of me, I couldn't get away. I should have known, I should have made more of an effort to get home on time, I should have, I could have been better, I could have…

"Do you?" he said, and it didn't matter if he yelled or if he spoke in that deadly quiet tone, it would all end the same. I just waited for the beginning.


	2. Chapter 2

He grabbed my wrists and I felt that pressure, the squeezing and the bones grinding. He shoved me up against the counter and it dug into my back, he threw me to the floor. Kicked me. Sharp pain. I squeezed my eyes shut. It would be over soon.

I stayed on the floor, feeling the cool tile beneath my cheek, and it felt nice. I felt the pain from the kicks, a kind of circular pain that peaked and backed off and would peak again. He was gone. I heard him leave.

I picked myself up, feeling kind of brittle, like I could just break in two. I sucked in my breath and felt the sharp pain in my rib cage. There was this dull anger mixed with a dull shame, like it was my fault somehow. It felt like the way my father was was my fault. It wasn't. The fact that he was such a violent dick wasn't my fault, but this kind of thing went both ways. Parents could feel responsible for their kids' behavior, and kids could feel responsible for their parents' behavior.

I went upstairs slowly, not seeing him in the living room. Maybe he was in his office, or maybe he left. I didn't care. I hung onto the bannister and climbed the stairs, wanting the sanctuary of my room.

I sat on my bed and flipped through the T.V. channels, not really seeing anything that was on or paying attention to it, I just wanted the soothing background of noise and flashing images that meant nothing. I was angry with him, angry that he was hurting me, angry that I had to fear being hurt. What sucked was that it was never the same. I could be late and sometimes he'd just talk, be disappointed or mad but it would be just talk. Sometimes the kitchen could be a mess and he'd just talk. Sometimes there would be nothing that caused it, and he'd come at me, creating an argument out of the blue, and his belt would be off in a second, held above his head like a weapon until it came crashing down on me, biting into me. That's what a leather belt felt like when it hit you, like some animal biting.

I was angry with him, I hated him, I wished he'd leave for good, I wished I lived with Joey. At Joey's house no one ever hit anybody, no one ever yelled like he did, with the narrowed eyes and the steel tone. Things could be messy or you could be late and it wasn't the end of the world, not like here.

But I was also feeling like it was my fault. I caused him to get so angry with me, I screwed up. If I was better, if I was perfect, he wouldn't hit me. If I could do everything right he wouldn't get so angry. But I always failed, I couldn't do it.

I was getting screwed up. There were things I noticed that I did but I couldn't help it. I'd stutter sometimes. I'd always stutter if there was going to be a beating, if I knew that it was coming and I was trying to apologize or plead with him not to. It was like I just couldn't get the words out, they were stuck in place, like a car that wouldn't start, like a record in a groove. But I'd sometimes stutter in other situations, too. Like at school talking to teachers, or girls. And I'd flinch away from any kind of sudden movement, anywhere. It was from getting beaten all the time, I knew it.

I watched the T.V. feeling the anger just pulse through me, waves and waves of it. It pissed me off to not be able to be comfortable because my ribs might be broken and if I leaned on them wrong it sent a sharp shooting pain right through me. It pissed me off seeing the bruising around my wrists where he always grabbed them.

I wondered why it had to be this way, why my mother had to be dead and my father was an abusive jerk. What did I do to deserve this?

There was a funny thing that would happen after a beating. It was this weird feeling like almost being numb, feeling sleepy but not really tired. It was what being on percocets felt like. I had percocets when I had to have this tooth fixed, it got infected and it needed a root canal, it was awful. But afterward I got percocets for the pain and the feeling after being beaten was similar, a strange disconnected feeling.

The next morning I woke up and felt so stiff, so sore, like I could hardly move. But I had to move. I had to get up and go to school and sit on the rock hard chairs all day, shifting and trying to get comfortable. I had to pretend that I was normal and that everything was fine, but I could fall into that role and come to believe it by the end of the day.

I got out of bed, feeling like I was 90 instead of 14. I had this full length mirror in my room and I'd stand before it in the mornings after getting the shit kicked out of me and just stare at the bruises in fascination. The colors, God. Purples, dark purples, blue, fading yellows and greens. Bruises were broken blood vessels beneath the skin and the blood came out and kind of just pooled there. Once in a while some of the bruises would be black. Those were the worst of all and I'd looked it up once. Black bruises meant that more than the blood vessels had broken. It meant that the bones had bled.


End file.
